CHOCHMAS NASHIM: CHUKAT: FAITH
By: Suri Davis
Forty six years ago today Jewish hostages were saved from their kidnapped place in Entebbe Uganda. Those alive at the time will remember holding our collective breathes waiting to hear the fait of the 94 Israelis and Jews who were held hostage in Uganda with the consent of the Ugandan government and its dictator Idi Amin. The brilliance of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence, was put to the task and test, and over a 90 minute rescue, all but three were rescued, and the famed commander of the raid, Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu was killed, the brother of famed prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It pays to watch either of the movies, Raid on Entebbe, Victory at Entebbe to understand and recall the miracle G-d wrought in the rescue.
We are commanded time and again, every day and holiday to remember that G-d redeemed us from Egypt, to recall the miracles of the ten plagues and the splitting of the Red Sea. Incorporating this gratitude into our souls and our daily lives sets the stage for understanding this week’s torah portion of Chukat, wherein G-d sets forth laws which have no human rationale. It’s human nature to want to know and understand why we are asked to do something, for whose benefit and simply towards what end. Who would have the audacity to ask a human king to explain his commands, yet G-d generally commands us to perform mitzvoth/commandments and good deeds which make sense to us.
This Torah portion may be a challenge to some, our ancestors said “naaseh v’nishma/we will do and then we will hear [understand], and doing commandments simply because we have faith in G-d, faith that all that He asks of us is for the good, our individual and communal good is core Emunah/faith and bitachon/trust. This Torah portion is our challenge to ourselves to perform that which we don’t understand and we accept.
Shabbat shalom.
-Suri